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BiShip
BiShip is a minor inter-village gang, with branches in only two villages, Ship and Shipsister. Its name, obviously, derives from the fact that it is located in two (bi) shipbuilding villages, and the gang has never shown any interest in expanding beyond those villages. (Though the name is actually borrowed from "BiShip Brigands," one of the two gangs that formed BiShip.) The name is thought by some to have a secondary meaning, as a pun on the word "bishop," though it is unknown if there's any truth to this belief. The gang was formed in LY 904, shortly after the Laser Plot, though the two events are not known to be related. However, it is believed that the dons of the two gangs that formed an alliance, Jack Dockrat of Ship's "BiShip Brigands" and Milo Longshore of Shipsister's "Cosa Nostra," had each been in negotiations to merge their respective gangs with either LandOrder or InterGang, neither of which had branches in those villages. It seems that the infamy of the Laser Plot made the larger gangs rethink their interest in expanding into Ship, as well as making any criminals concerned about increased police scrutiny of any manner of criminal activity in any port villages. Many people cite this as the impetus for Dockrat and Longshore to form their own alliance at that time. It is believed that when Larami Illuminatus broke off from InterGang in 912 to form the Illuminati, BiShip was one of the gangs she approached about possibly joining her new gang, though they apparently declined. The two gangs *'BiShip Brigands' were a gang formed in 890, when Ship's two largest gangs- the "Northside Ne'er-do-wells" (led at the time by Earl), and the "Southside Scallywags" (led at the time by Seamus)- ended their longtime rivalry to forge an alliance, which made the new gang far more powerful than either had been before, and essentially eliminated competition from any smaller gangs that had existed in the village, up until that point. While Earl left the gang, Seamus became the first leader of the Brigands. The name "BiShip Brigands" derived from the fact that it was comprised of two halves of Ship. When the Brigands merged with the Cosa Nostra in 904, the name "BiShip" took on a new meaning, referring now to two villages, Ship and Shipsister. *'Cosa Nostra' were a gang which has controlled virtually all crime in Shipsister since the village's founding in 370, or soon thereafter. The name is borrowed from a Terran language, the same one that provided the term "fratelli" to describe people as being citizens of Shipsister. "Cosa Nostra" translates as "our thing," and has long been used on Earth as a name for organized crime. While the Cosa Nostra of Shipsister are thought to bear little resemblance to that of Earth, they did have a reputation for being more organized than any other gang in any village on The Land, prior to 899. Also unlike most gangs prior to that year, there were few if any teenagers employed by the Cosa Nostra; they were the first gang on the Land to be comprised almost exclusively of adults, who took their work far more seriously than other gangs. It's said that when they merged with the BiShip Brigands, Milo Longshore agreed to the name "BiShip" for the new gang partly because it seemed to be a more apt description of the inter-village gang than it had ever been for the single-village Brigands; but also partly because he felt that Landians didn't have the right to usurp the name of a Terran organization. While both gangs are now technically known simply as the Ship and Shipsister branches of BiShip, they are still commonly referred to, especially by outsiders, as the Brigands and the Cosa Nostra. Category:Groups